i hate fucking banks

Apparently, though, that only applies to being overdrawn, not overdrawn in excess of an agreed overdraft. Fair enough, there's some ambiguity there, but when I rang up they refused to refund me on the basis of my honest misunderstanding of their vaguely worded terms. I got angry and asked to speak to someone else but she was just as insistent, and said I could appeal in writing and if that didn't work out then take it to the small-claims court.

I feel really aggrieved about this. Am I wrong to?

I always say "can I just NOT have an overdraft so when there's no money I can't use any?". Can I fuck.

but haha yes, that is cruelly true!

i worked in consumer banking for around 5 years. you are not telling us the whole story.

ps. overdraft protection is a scam, however, you're right about that.

what else do you need to know dude?

what kind of transfer was it? ACH, wire transfer, paypal?

-- kyle (akmonda...), January 27th, 2005.

whoops. x-post

Um, shouldn't that more properly be "i fucking hate banks"?

I am assuming online banking also uses ACH instead of "regular" wire transfer means.

(p.s. don't anyone even THINK about getting an account with Natwest, they are beyond evil)

HSBC WERE the best bank I have dealt with, from a bad bunch.

I'm lucky because my Chase checking account is a former WaMu 100% free checking account from before the merger. It seems like Chase is required to abide by the no-fees rule. They are running a $100 promo for opening a second checking account with them, an account that does incur fees if you don't get direct deposit. I wonder if this is to get people weened off old WaMu accounts since these sorts of promos, which were everywhere a couple years ago, are now very rare.

I was cleaning out my files and I found an statement from a WaMu savings account that I closed in 2007. I couldn't believe my eyes. 7% APR on a plain old savings account.

I miss Fleet.

I'm dropping BofA this month for a local credit union, since I've found a few that can do business accounts in addition to personal ones. I had a very small overdraft on my BofA biz acct due to me forgetting about an automatic deduction - I had no problem with them charging me the $35 for that. But to inform me of it, they mailed me a postcard, 2 days after the overdraft, telling me I had 5 days to cover it or they would charge me an additional "extended overdraft fee" of $35. I got the postcard 3 days after they had already charged the 2nd fee. Now, if I could access my biz acct on-line, as I do with my personal accts, I would have seen what was up and taken care of it. As it is, 3 different "personal bankers" have utterly failed to figure out how to get me on-line access to my biz acct and have been unable to sort out how to link another acct for overdraft coverage. The last straw was when the "customer service agent" on the phone told me it was my own fault, of course they wouldn't rescind the second fee. So, good-bye BofA you fucking bank you.

BoA really is the devil - so glad to have closed my account there

Congratulations. BoA is the worst of the worst. They make Chase look like a charity.

k i hate banks as much as everyone else, in fact i wrote a real sarcastic note to Citi a few weeks ago....but speaking as a former call center calltaker, if you told someone you hoped they died and got off with just being banned from calling them, you got off easy.

if anybody ever told me they hoped I died, I'd copy down their address, drive to their house, dismember their entire body, swallow their motherfucking soul, and then send footage of it to TMZ. Please belie' dat.

I had no problem with them charging me the $35 for that. But to inform me of it, they mailed me a postcard, 2 days after the overdraft, telling me I had 5 days to cover it or they would charge me an additional "extended overdraft fee" of $35

there was a good exposé of these practices on frontline recently. basically by not categorizing overdrafts as "loans," the banks are free to hand their customers any kinds of ridiculous fees/"service charges" without revealing their policies in any detail. interviews with some us senators and congressmen who wanted to reform this aspect of banking.

the basic idea behind their policies, as your experience suggests, is to charge folks multiple times for the privilege of "permitting" overdrafts. and they charge you in such a way as when you finally realize what's been happening it's too late.

suntrust did that to me quite often. it's sorta like I found out so late about the first one that of course it got presented again and I got dinged again.

everybody who's not a descendent of JP Morgan or doesn't have a deluxe home in the Hamptons is scheduled to be raped on a daily basis by financial institutions, so bend over and inhale....:(

Every time I think bad thoughts about my UK bank (and I do) I just need to read this thread and realise how much worse American banks are

I gotta go into a branch today and convince them I am who I am, though, so if that goes badly maybe I'll be back on here

i hate chase and would take all my money out of the bank and put it in a nice credit union somewhere but they give me miles, sweet, sweet miles

f anybody ever told me they hoped I died, I'd copy down their address, drive to their house, dismember their entire body, swallow their motherfucking soul, and then send footage of it to TMZ. Please belie' dat.

― Ballistic, Thursday, March 4, 2010 12:32 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

my new favorite poster

i've gotta learn not to post after drinking...

Ballistic is a sock, right?

no

Jaq, it might be worth pointing out to the bank that when time-sensitive charges are placed on an account it is on the bank to notify the account holder in the most timely fashion. A postal notification is just not good enough if you have empowered them to contact you via email. Feel free to point out that repeated requests to fix the problem have gone unmet, that admin charges are difficult to justify when an institution is indulging in avoidable maladministration and simply refuse any subsequent charges relating to the matter until a dedicated customer service rep contacts you to resolve it. Send a registered letter and if you haven't heard from them in 5 working days, contact the bank's press office.

In 2008 I overdrew my Wachovia account and didn't find out about it until a week later, when I received my first notice by postcard, even though there is a branch half a mile down the street. By the time I got that notice, of course, it had been a week so it had overdrafted enough times (on a handful of sub-$5 charges) I was already in the red $300.

I can't help not reading this thread title in a lewd way

suzy, I'd go that route if I were planning on staying with them as a bank, but there are too many other issues where it's been made clear that "this is our policy" and they are not customer service oriented enough to care about the practical impact on actual people. For instance, every month I write my landlord a check and when he deposits it (at a different bank in another state), BofA places a hold on my account for double the amount of the check. They also phone me to verify that I wrote the check and that the amount is correct. Every month for a year, I contacted various levels of customer service about this, asking that a note be put on my account - the landlord's name and the amount are always the same - but "this is our policy" and I gave up 6 months ago and started sending him cashier's checks instead (at $7 each - $4 at the credit union btw). My list of grievances is long and for my equanimity, I just need to make the switch to a smaller, local institution.

Oh yeah, this is important if you use Wachovia/Wells Fargo. During the time I was getting hit with overdraft fees w/o knowing, I was also getting hit with a fee for not having $500 in my account. And of course that counts as a charge so I got an overdraft fee on top of that fee as well.

This was weird because when I started the account I started it as a free account. Then I realized that when my checkcard was stolen and I had them cancel the account & restart it, they signed me up for a non-free account without telling me. Eventually I discovered all this at a bank branch when dealing with my fees and asked them what the charge was for switching to a free account. "Nothing". Okay, are there any other differences? "No".

The only reason the fee-incurring account exists is to screw over people that don't constantly question everything. Working with banks is like walking down the street with people constantly trying to pickpocket you and you have to smack their hands away and be paranoid about it if you don't want to lose money.

there was a good exposé of these practices on frontline recently. basically by not categorizing overdrafts as "loans," the banks are free to hand their customers any kinds of ridiculous fees/"service charges" without revealing their policies in any detail. interviews with some us senators and congressmen who wanted to reform this aspect of banking.

― by another name (amateurist), Thursday, March 4, 2010 7:02 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark

lots of good research here (full disclosure: i wrote five or six of the papers between 05-08) check em out!

I really, really miss UK banks. I never thought I'd say that.
I wanted to print out a statement from my US Wells Fargo account, so, not wanting to bother the bank staff I just went to the ATM, which told me it "might charge" me a dollar or so for the privelege.

So I just went in the branch and got them to print it out for me on a proper printer. Oh and they said "might charge" did mean "will charge". Wtf.

Every time I think bad thoughts about my UK bank (and I do) I just need to read this thread and realise how much worse American banks are

I gotta go into a branch today and convince them I am who I am, though, so if that goes badly maybe I'll be back on here

― falling while carrying an owl (a passing spacecadet), Thursday, March 4, 2010 12:53 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

truth bomb. american banks are super cunty, by this thread's account

Last year, my bf's bank was offering him credit cards galore based on his salary & the amounts of money going in and out of his account; now they won't give him anything except a secured credit account b/c his credit history is all in Europe.

He didn't get one when he COULD have, and now we can't move without one. Fuck the entire cunting credit system that requires you to play a game that fucks you over just to be allowed to exist in the eyes of all financial institutions.

Slightly related: I bought a new car in 2000 when I had stellar credit. The salesman assured me that I could get 0% Honda Credit and pay less than $200/month. That wasn't correct, but they found a finance company that would work with me. I signed the papers and gave them my trade-in.

Three days later, they called me and there was a problem and the finance company reneged based on "additional information." Even so, I was still at around $200/month.

I wound up paying over $425/month, which in those days, in North Carolina, for a student was basically a direct road to bankruptcy.

american banks are cunty presumably because there aren't enough legislated consumer protections.

Last year, my bf's bank was offering him credit cards galore based on his salary & the amounts of money going in and out of his account; now they won't give him anything except a secured credit account b/c his credit history is all in Europe.

He didn't get one when he COULD have, and now we can't move without one. Fuck the entire cunting credit system that requires you to play a game that fucks you over just to be allowed to exist in the eyes of all financial institutions.

― The other side of genetic power today (Laurel), Thursday, March 4, 2010 8:37 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark

same thing happened to me, laurel. even though i had a direct depost and good banking relationship with BofA for like six years, they would only give me a secured credit card. i thought i was being wise by waiting till i graduated college and had a job to get a credit card. companies will give any college student a credit card, because they hedge on the student accumulating lots of fee-income and being a low-risk for default, as theyre presumed to still be tied to their parents' purse-strings. after college, with no guaranteed payback, and a lesser chance of wanton card-use, there's less incentive for the bank to extend credit. so fucked up.

I still don't have any credit cards -- when a woman at Citibank heard me say that a couple of weeks ago, she assumed I was foreign and asked how long I'd "been here". Because clearly no self-respecting American woman wouldn't have any open lines of credit. I MEAN HOW WILL SHE EVER BUY SHOES

in fairness, with the cost of shoes these days you can see how she'd make that assumption

Jeez, I've never had any problems with my bank (TD) but all's I do is get my paycheck deposited and spend it with a debit card. Sometimes I put some in an Ally savings account I have. But that's pretty much it.

They're also really good with replacing debit cards I've lost

Trying to GIS something humorous for "fucking banks" was NAGL. I was previously unaware of a porn star named Briana Banks, but now I think I've seen a good sampling of her talents.

word Stevie D - all PA/DE/NJ people should switch to TD.

my friend uses ING Direct, and he says they're pretty decent w/r/t customer service and not fucking you over.

yeah, when i left BofA, i got an ING checking/savings account.

bank of america has stolen so much money from me from overdrafting

I'm unnaturally in love w. ING. I suspect it's all the orange balls everywhere.

Capitol One is offering a one-time payout of $200 CASH TO YOUR ACCOUNT and 4000 air miles for opening a checking acct with them and utilizing direct deposit. The checking account is no-fee and no-minimum-balance. There are also air miles & rewards for every credit or debit purchase, and for using checks and making cash withdrawals.

Basically it sounds like an amazing deal with no downside. WHAT AM I MISSING?? Someone tell me if I shouldn't switch to CapOne basically immediately. NB: I already have a small line of credit w them so maybe that's why I got this offer??

Also I would take pretty much any good opportunity to get away from BoA, whom I use now and have for over 12 years (when they were Fleet, RIP).

There has to be a catch. Read the contract/tiny letters very attentively - maybe your rates will go up astronomically the millisecond you pay one of their bills too late, maybe it's a mandatory 10-year contract (with only the first year at an attractive rate), etc

Even more likely: your credit limit goes up automatically every so often until it's suddenly a Premium account, which costs $$$/month.

Hahah my payments on my line of credit are kind of delinquent right now so I doubt that! But I've been sort of looking for an alternate to BoA and hadn't quite made up my mind to switch to an internet-only bank yet...maybe CapOne is the happy medium?

wife applied for a cap one credit card before going to europe, as their conversion fees were lower than that of other cards. a few days later cap one *called her brother* -- whose name had obviously not been supplied on the application -- asking background questions.

maybe that was an aberration, but . . .

i would highly recommend usaa if you have an in.

I had a capital one credit card, it sucked a caribou's ass. HOwever I think we had a thread on this and couldn't come up with any options that didn't. (That said PNC gives me the stress free experience that neither Citi nor RBS could)

I just got a capital one card to use overseas. no experience with their banks.

I use TD Bank (formerly Commerce) since they seem to have good customer service and good conditions for their checking accounts (i.e. very low minimum balance, no fees, etc). I've also heard good things about ING Direct checking accounts.

ING direct's electric orange acct is great, but requires a credit check, since their (good and universally-underwritten to account-holders) overdraft coverage is a line-of-credit.

just walked over to the bank to get some fees they charged me for not proving that i was a full-time student before semester started removed, they initially refused but i got into a p heated argument with the manager whom i accused of exploitation ([bank] made 1.5B$ profits last year, u really need to snake someone with under $1200 to his name??) then i threatened to cancel my account and she tried to bluff for like a second but then folded & with one click of a button dropped the fees. feeling a mix of feelings right now: proud to have fought & won against an evil & unjust institution, embarassed to have had an argument in a public place, and surprise at the arrogance of the people who represent this institution. i guess i kind of expected them to be super apologetic & corporate-nice about it, but i was greeted pretty viciously

left my passport in the bank, my local bank, when i was opening a business account with them, and they didn't even phone me to tell me. i noticed it gone last night and called in this morning as i'm flying tomorrow.

which leads me to... what is the fucking point of banks? like if they can't even do the most basic piece of service for a customer with two accounts? like literally they are a vault you put your money in.

faaabulous job, Eric Holder

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/too-big-jail-hsbc-escaped-money-laundering-charges-because-market-meltdown-fears-1570150

lmao. finally get the first of my two IRS checks that I've been waiting for five months, decide to deposit it with the bank I have that didn't recently sue me, and they decide to put an extended five day hold on a check from the US Treasury because of "inconsistent information" on the check (their words).

money is a racket. keep your money in your pillowcase or your butt